


Of Tomatoes and Places

by Silex



Category: Jackalope Wives Series - Ursula Vernon
Genre: Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 10:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17057753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: The cholla-bone girl is a good listener, knowing that sometimes asking questions gets in the way of getting answers. She listens to the practical lessons Grandma Harken teaches her, as well as the less practical things that others have to say. Of course, her being a child it's the less practical things that stick with her the most.





	Of Tomatoes and Places

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/gifts).



> Thank you DesertScribe for asking for this lovely, magical setting and in the process giving me the chance to read it and other short stories by the author.

“They’re not going to turn red any faster by you watching them,” Grandma Harken chided gently. From the moment that she had put this year’s batch of tomato plants into the dirt the cholla-bone girl had been fascinated with them.

“I know,” the young girl flashed her a bashful smile before adding apologetically, “But I like listening to their stories.”

“You mean what happened last year with them being stolen?” She must have told the girl that story a dozen times already and each time she listened, gravely serious, never once asking a question about any of it. The girl knew, she understood in her bones how those things worked.

“That’s part of the story,” she agreed, her head inclined towards one of the plants, “They remember things, in their seeds and their stories go far back.”

It was the first time that the girl had spoken so directly about such things. There had been hints of course, but the girl had never been one to talk much and Grandma wasn’t one to ask questions for their own sake.

She’d taught the girl what she could, how to make a tomato sandwich, to fix a wobbly chair and the right way to sew a button back on a shirt, little things that were more important than most people thought. Just the other day the two of them had rehung the door to her room because it had gotten sticky as the house continued to settle. It was a practical lesson, carried out in near silence, just the occasional request to pass a nail or hold the door in place just so, the sort of thing that a person had to know to take care of herself because there were times when you couldn’t run off for help with doing the littlest thing. And if the cholla-bone girl was disappointed by such mundane lessons she never let it show. Other lessons would present themselves in time and Grandma would do her best to teach them when that time came. Hearing about tomato stories though, that was something she hadn’t expected, which went to show that there was always something to learn.

Grandma looked at the plants with a new sense of respect. She’d known that they had stories, everything had a story, but that the events of last year had become part of their story was impressive. Being remembered in a story for stopping a tomato thief was quite the accomplishment, a better way than most to be remembered in her opinion. Then, because she could see that the girl wanted to say more, but wasn’t going to ask, Grandma went over and knelt down next to her, “What kind of stories?”

“Stone cities in the jungles, places where there are plants everywhere and there’s so much rain and green, wars and empires falling, faraway places,” she looked back down at the plants, embarrassed, “Recipes too.”

It seemed that her humble little tomato plants had quite the grand stories to tell, but it was nice to know that they were practical enough to have a sense of perspective. Knowing about faraway places and times was all well and good, but recipes were, in most cases, more immediately useful.

“What do they think of the sandwiches I make?” Grandma more to see how the girl would respond. She wasn’t so delicate that she’d be upset if the tomatoes thought they had a better way to make a sandwich, nor was she likely to change how she did it. Maybe just once if the tomatoes asked, but she was set in her ways, but the cholla-bone girl being able to say it to her it was an important thing. The truth was an important thing and the cholla-bone girl had to know that. Lies, even little ones could grow in time until they needed more lies to support them, then more and more until the whole mess came crashing down on the person telling it.

“They like that they’re alone in the sandwich and they like how you make the bread,” she smiled, “Can we make bread today?”

“I don’t see why not, and if we’re going to be talking about recipes, do the tomatoes have one they want to share?”

The cholla-bone girl beamed. Little thing that she was, she could still eat half a loaf of bread fresh from the oven before it had a chance to cool down, “They do, not for right away though.”

“I didn’t imagine,” Grandma looked at the tomatoes, still green and not yet showing the slightest hint of being ripe.

“It’s for when they’re tired, when they still have tomatoes, but not ones that they have time to get ripe,” the cholla-bone girl looked fondly at the plants, “Instead of trying to let the tomatoes get ripe on the windowsill, you cut them up into slices while they’re still green, dip them in eggs and milk and then in flour mixed with spices and fry them that way. Can we try that?”

“Of course,” Grandma had heard of fried green tomatoes, even had them a few times, but she’d never tried to make them herself. By the time the plants had started to droop in the heat she’d always had her chance to enjoy them at their best and had been more than willing to share the ones that would never reach that full, perfect ripeness, “You really like listening to their stories, don’t you?”

The girl nodded vigorously, “They have the best stories. The squash and beans know a lot about the people here and creatures, but they,” she glanced from side to side and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “They gossip a lot and you told me not to listen to gossip.”

Grandma looked at the beans and at just that moment a breeze blew over them causing their leaves to rustle and the pods to shake. Yes, she could imagine them talking to each other the way some of the folks in town did, about goings on that they had no business with. The squash plants though, she would have thought better of them. Then again, with the way they sent out their little curling vines, that was kind of like leaning over to listen in on a conversation that you weren’t a part of.

“I can see that,” Grandma smiled.

“I like the saguaros too,” the cholla-bone girl continued, emboldened, “They’re very proud, very dignified, like you. And they don’t mind it when I ask questions, like you. I just wish that they’d talk to the trains.”

That came as a surprise, why was the girl concerned about the trains. Her family of course, but if that were the case she could just talk to them.

“Why’s that child?” It could be nothing, but then again, the trains did get squirrely from time to time. The cholla-bone girl was part of the desert, but she had connections, by blood to the trains, a foot in both worlds and if there was something happening she might be the first to know.

“The trains go places,” she sighed, “They see things and I want to see those things, or at least hear about them, but the trains don’t talk to me like they do my uncle. He can tell me about them, but it’s not the same. There are mountains out there where the snow falls higher than,” her eyes darted around looking for something sufficiently tall for the comparison, “The tops of the windows. And there are fields of flowers and forests with trees bigger around than your house and bridges and rivers. I’d love to see those things or hear about them, but the trains won’t talk to me and the saguaros won’t talk to them and I don’t think the trains will want to take me anywhere.”

There was a lesson in that alright, one that she’d never imagined needing to teach to a little girl, but maybe it shouldn’t have surprised her. People tended to want what they couldn’t have and sometimes got so caught up in it that they failed to appreciate what they did have. It was a lesson that you usually had to learn by living it, but maybe she could help the girl along for when the time came.

“How much did your grandma tell you about me? Did she tell you how we met, back when my first husband was still alive?”

If the girl was startled by the abrupt question she didn’t show it, “Just that you knew more about the desert than any other person and that if anyone could teach me what I’d need to know that it was you.”

That was good, though it was quite the story, one that Anna was rightfully proud for the part that she had played, “That’s fine. Let’s go inside and I’ll tell you a story, about when I was younger. Not your age, because that wasn’t when I learned what I needed to know, but when I learned that being stuck is a feeling and that there are some people that got stuck on being stuck so badly that even when they had the chance they couldn’t get themselves unstuck.”

The cholla-bone girl sprung up with the speed only a small child could, then waited patiently for Grandma to get up. She had the good sense not to offer a hand, knowing that help wasn’t necessary, just time.

“I can’t imagine you getting stuck,” the girl said in an awed tone, “No one or thing would dare.”

“Like I said, stuck’s just a feeling, but let me start at the beginning, back when I first ended up with my first husband. Now I’m sure you’ve heard the music out in the hills and so had he,” Grandma smiled bitterly at the memory. Even after all these years it still stung and maybe recent events had made the hurt a little fresher than it had been for a long time, “It’s going to sound like a sad story at the start, but it’s not if you listen all the way through.”

The cholla-bone girl followed her silently into the house, listening to every word, ready to take the lesson to heart even if she didn’t know what it was yet.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're reading this without knowing the stories it's based on you should fix that right away. The two short stories, _Jackalope Wives_ and _The Tomato Thief_ are available free online.


End file.
